2015-08-19

I'm trying very hard to remember if I've seen this play before. I know last year I tried to see it on the final weekend of the festival, but the tickets were sold out or I had a schedule conflict or something. This year, I made sure to see the play a little bit earlier, but whether it was familiar because I've gone before or because it's just so breezy it seems like you're a regular I cannot say.

2 Ruby Knockers, 1 Jaded Dick: A Dirk Darrow Investigation is an excellent and breezy sort of adventure with a magic show thrown into the mix. Due to the iprov-ish nature of the show, I won't get into too much of the details. The audience members that Dick Darrow (Tim Motley) picks are going to differ with each show, so my personal experience won't really matter. Whether or not they follow stage direction easily, their responses to his questions, how good looking they are, etc. etc. etc. isn't really appropriate.

The one constant in all shows is Motley. His one-man performance (tragically, no girl with Ruby Knockers ever appears on stage) encapsulates almost all of the performances save for a couple recorded voice actors at the very end. With only a couple exceptions, he keeps to the style almost effortlessly. He can deliver his lines (including the dorky 60's Batman era sight gags and puns) with aplomb, staying in character very effectively and not being afraid to react to audience reaction to his jokes (he got a lot of cheers with a Stephen Harper crack, oddly the only one I've experienced this festival, I'd be curious to see if he's willing to slam Angry Beard).

The jokes were all good, the performance was stellar, and the magic tricks were all pretty cool, though the last half was a little magic-heavy and I'm sure that it could have been more effective when spread throughout the performance. I also hate to spoil part of the joke, but the reason the serial number on the bill matched the rest of the show is because Motley replaced the one given by an audience member with the one matching the "elements" of his show.

Apologies in advance, as by the nature of this show it doesn't lend particularly well to review, and I had tried to do something bigger and more elaborate with this blogpost. It wasn't working well, and there's more Fringe to cover.